1. We start, as always, with the winner. That was nothing short of a ball-striking MasterClass from Justin Thomas. Midway through Thomas’ final-round 68, NBC on-course commentator Jim “Bones” Mackay called JT’s precision “Hogan-esque.” Perhaps a bit much, but Bones has been around the tour for a while now and has seen many of the greats up close and in person. He’s not going to go there just to go there. To shoot 132 on the weekend at TPC Sawgrass the way JT did is about as good as golf gets.With that in mind, it’s a bit curious that Thomas has spent just five weeks of his career at World No. 1. Consider this—since the beginning of 2017, here’s how Thomas and the current No. 1, Dustin Johnson, stack up:
JUSTIN THOMAS
12 PGA Tour wins
1 major
1 Players
2 World Golf Championships
1 FedEx Cup
DUSTIN JOHNSON
12 PGA Tour wins
1 major
0 Players
3 World Golf Championships
1 FedEx Cup
Virtually identical though, as Michael Mann has taught us all, the chicanery is in the starting point. DJ would easily win a side-by-side that started either earlier or later, so let's not lose sight of that. Then there's also the fact that while they each have the one major, one is more major than the other...
But this one should have the wokesters taking to the streets:
3. Lee Westwood now has back-to-back runner-up finishes on the PGA Tour. He joked this week that his new first name is “47-year-old,” but we only talk about things like that when there’s something to talk about. What Westwood accomplished these last two weeks, against world-class fields, is remarkable—as is the $2.66 million he’s won. (On today’s PGA Tour, the big events pay more than $1 million for second.)What’s more, Westwood said he was heading up to play Augusta National with his son Sam on Monday. His son will caddie for him in the Masters next month, which is possible because Westwood simply doesn’t need a pro caddie at this stage in his career. There’s nothing a caddie is going to tell him that’s going to make a difference, and today’s yardage books are so detailed and effective that he’s got all the information he needs right there. So he’ll sub-out fianceé Helen Storey and sub in Sam. What a life this man is living.
I can't believe what I'm hearing. He's firing a woman and giving her job to....wait for it...a white man? Talk about privilege...
he makes a few interesting points about the Kraken, including this one with which I agree:
6. Bryson’s driving dominates the headlines, and rightfully so. He re-made his body in a stunningly short period and subsequently became the longest player on the PGA Tour, bar none. And yet the part of his game that I find myself marveling at is his putting.His technique, like everything about him, is unusual. He uses a 43-inch face-balanced putter with six degrees of loft—that’s way more loft than the average putter on tour—pins it to his left forearm, stands super close to the ball, locks his elbows and tries to take the club straight back and straight through, as opposed to following a small arc like most pros do. He does it his way, and he does it damn well. DeChambeau finished 10th on tour in strokes gained/putting last year and is on track to finish in that same range this season. Anecdotally, his three- to five-footers seem to always go in dead-center. He’s nowhere close to being one-dimensional.
I can barely watch it, but it's consistent and effective. But what Dan misses is that you need the extra loft on your putter when, like Kuchar, you anchor the shaft to your forearm.
To me the proof was that six-footer for the win at Bay Hill. It never occurred to me that he might miss, and it didn't seem to occur to Bryson wither. Or Lee, for that matter...
I think you'll be amused by this one:
7. You simply can’t write anything Players Championship-related without touching on the “Is it a major?” conversation, trite as it may be. The Players is not a major in the same way an apple is not an orange. It’s simply not. But I do know this: It feels major. Small ‘m.’ It draws the strongest field in golf. It’s played on the same vivacious golf course every year. The return to March has added a jolt of energy, making it the first truly can’t-miss tournament of the year. Anyone who follows golf is absolutely glued to the action. And the players themselves care a ton. Sure, part of that is due to the $15 million purse and $2.7 million grand prize. But whatever the motivation, you can’t watch guys fist-pumping after holing a putt to make the cut on the number and tell me this isn’t a hugely important tournament.Some will argue this feeling has risen because the tour and the TV networks have spent so much money convincing us it is big. Lest us forget, though, that the four majors are not some canon dictated by a higher power; they were determined, as the legend goes, by sportswriters in the 1960s, with a little nugget from Arnold Palmer. To suggest we resist the Players because it is owned by the PGA Tour and marketed to death is to sit on a high horse and ignore history. Just because the continued elevation of this event feels a bit contrived doesn’t make it any less real.Moving forward, perhaps we can resist the constant urge to compare anything and everything, and simply enjoy the Players for what it is: an awesome, fun, super-important tournament that is absolutely relevant when discussing a player’s résumé and standing in the game. Nothing more, nothing less.
I'm gonna go with no, final answer.
Forget what we think, we've embraced the event. It's the suits at Fortress Ponte Vedra Beach who are perpetually miffed at this event's status, and of course NBC is forced to dance to that tune. I also agree that it's far better in March... But remind me, who moved it to May? Yup, they diminished it in an attempt to make it something it can never be...
Daniel next tackles the golf course, though in a partially misguided manner:
8. A big reason for the Players being awesome is TPC Sawgrass. It’s knocked in some social-media circles as an unnatural test and a bad influence on other golf courses. Bollocks! It’s fantastic. Designed to torment the world’s best players and throttle the longest hitters, it accomplishes exactly that. Not every golf course has to be “playable” for the 15-handicap; especially one that has “TPC” and “Stadium Course” literally in its name. People don’t come to TPC Sawgrass, which was in immaculate condition this past week, to shoot their best score ever. They come to get kicked in the teeth. And that’s OK!What makes it a great test is that it throws hazard after hazard at you, but rewards the player bold enough to play closer to those hazards, as it opens up angles to the greens (See Justin Thomas, 18th hole). And it does a terrific job of identifying who is playing best that week; not who’s the best player in the world, but who has all facets of his game clicking for those four days.Plus, the finish is everything you can ask for from a final three-hole stretch: a reachable par 5, where eagles and double bogeys are possible; one of golf’s most famous par 3s; and a beefy, no-excuses par 4 that forces you to hit a nervy shot under enormous pressure. Pete Dye’s masterpiece shined this week.
Except that it's actually quite playable for the 15-handicap. Landing areas are quite generous, and there's a wide range of tee options, including the best set of hybrid tees I've ever noticed (the best because they specifically avoid the 4-5 difficult forced carries that might be problematic for average players). Yes, there's water and sand everywhere, so if you're unable to play around the former and out of the latter, you're not going to have much fun. But no mid-teen handicapper should be scared of this place, though you should be sure to bring enough ammo.
I mostly agree with this as well:
9. A favorite pastime of Golf Twitter is complaining about television coverage. The usual gripes: too many commercials, stale commentary, unimaginative camera angles. It was refreshing, then, to see virtually everyone on social media unified in the belief that Golf Channel/NBC’s coverage this week was fantastic.The PGA Tour pulls out all the stops for the Players, including collaborating with sponsors to provide more golf and less commercials. And when the golf was on, there seemed to be a commitment to showing more golf shots. The commentators also showed restraint in not talking over player-caddie conversations, which are often quite compelling. And the broadcast went a step further with the technology. Cutting-edge graphics showed wind patterns, there were new camera angles split-screened with TopTracer and, my personal favorite, new wide-angle drone shots perfectly showed the scale and design features of TPC Sawgrass.
But I also think some of that is NBC vs. CBS. The drones have been the big success story of the pandemic years, especially since it's happened when the courses weren't choked with grandstands. Good times, indeed.
He's a guy I like, but I agree with Dan here:
11. We hate speculating on injuries. But having watched virtually all of Kevin Na’s opening round on Thursday—the one that ended with a quintuple-bogey 8 on 17, and then a prompt WD after the round—we can say for certain there were absolutely no outward signs of the back injury he claimed to suffer from after pulling out. His playing partner, Matthew Fitzpatrtick, also didn’t seem too pleased with Na’s early exit in an interview with Golf Channel.The thing about these dubious withdrawals is they’re not a victimless crime. On Friday, Fitzpatrick and Carlos Ortiz were forced to play as a twosome. The Players is already one of the slowest events of the year—TPC Sawgrass demands every ounce of your attention, and the ubiquitous water always slows things down. Having to play with one less golfer than the rest of the field made for a torturously slow round. Fitzpatrick and Ortiz waited on the 17th tee for more than eight minutes Friday afternoon. That shot is stressful enough, without having to sit on the tee and ruminate on it for eight minutes.Tour officials aren’t likely to do anything about this, since they can’t prove someone isn’t injured and they need to accept the player’s word in such circumstances (remember, it’s still a gentlemen’s game). But Na knows exactly what happened, and so does everyone else in the field—and as a 37-year-old veteran, it was hugely disappointing to see.
It's a game for gentlemen, except when it isn't...
I'm pretty sure we'll find common ground on this one, though that 25th anniversary will be here before we can blink:
13. We all appreciate Tiger Woods’ greatness. We all know he made a really long putt at the Players 20 years ago. We all know what hole that putt came on. We even know what the announcer said as that putt approached the hole.Catch my drift? I’m not sure a highlight clip has been played more in the history of organized sports. Even the players themselves are sick of seeing it on every TV screen, all the time, during Players week.“I think there’s a few,” Dustin Johnson said when asked about his memories of watching the Players growing up. “Obviously, well Tiger's putt—but they play it like every five seconds, so, you know.”He was then told it was playing on TV in that very moment.“Yeah, I’m sure. Just wait a minute, it will be on again.”DJ speaks for all of us. Let’s hope the constant airing was a result of this being the 20-year anniversary, because as one of my colleagues texted me this week: “They’ve shown the putt so much, I’m actively rooting for it to miss.”
In fact, I consider that insight, how is it that they put it,....better than most...
Hadn't noticed this, but I'll be watching come April:
16. Tyrrell Hatton came into this week ranked No. 7 in the world. He’s a fantastic player, perhaps the finest on the European Tour over the last 12 months, and he won the Arnold Palmer Invitational last year, too, so there’s no “he-can’t-win-in-America” talk going on here. But he’s been something of the anti-Brooks Koepka recently.Hatton has missed just four cuts in his last 29 starts worldwide. Those trunk-slams have come in these four events:PGA ChampionshipU.S. OpenMastersPlayers ChampionshipIn other words, the four biggest he’s played in that span. Hatton is too good a player to keep laying in egg an the biggest events. Is this evidence of an issue with his preparation? Does he psych himself out? Does his game not translate to demanding layouts? Is it simply a statistical fluke? Whatever the reason, it’s a curious stat indeed.
Hmmm... On the bright side, there was no Open Championship missed cut...
Dylan Dethier, in his Monday Finish column, also tackled the issue of the venue:
COURSE TALK
Some words on Sawgrass.
I’ve already said plenty about the way the course played this week, No. 17 in particular, but I appreciated the way the contenders were put to the test with firm, fast conditions Sunday afternoon. Paul Casey put it best when breaking down the challenge the course presents:
“You’re always on the hairy edge of disaster,” he said on Saturday evening.
That's because water is everywhere. But he also noticed something that struck me as well:
As for the final numbers on No. 17:
After a startling 35 golf balls found the water in the first round, that total fell to 13 on Friday and eight on Saturday before ticking back up to 11 on Sunday. The big-time carnage was limited to Thursday, when the hole yielded nine triple-bogeys or worse — including a bunch of 8s and an 11. The last three days, just two players made 6 or worse (including Ghim with an unfortunate late triple on Sunday).
As contenders landed safely on the center island green, one after the next, I couldn’t help but feel impressed by one golfer in particular: Rickie Fowler. No, not because of his play this week (he shot 77-73 and missed the cut by a half-dozen) but because of what he did at the very same hole in 2015, making birdie three times in a row under the gun.
Not sure the scatter diagram actually helps, because those balls that ended near the hole didn't necessarily land there. But nobody was going right at that pin for sure....
One last bit, an equipment fail that explains a little of what happened Sunday:
Bryson DeChambeau lost the Players Championship by two shots to Justin Thomas and a busted 4-utility iron might be partly to blame.After topping his tee shot into the penalty area on the par-4 fourth hole and taking a drop, DeChambeau’s third shot inexplicably sailed way right into the pine straw and bushes. The U.S. Open champ needed two shots to get on the green and up eventually wound up with a double bogey 6. Asked afterward what happened on the second shot, DeChambeau said, “My 4-iron cracked. I looked at the bottom of the thing. I couldn't use it all day. … It sounded really weird and just came off horrifically, and I'm like, oh, and there's a line in the bottom of the club.”
So how does an iron crack you ask? DeChambeau’s Cobra King Utility prototype is a hollow construction (as are most utility irons) designed to provide face flex similar to a driver. As such, there are times when metal fatigue will set in and fail. It is not unusual for PGA Tour players to have drivers crack and when you swing as fast as Bryson, utility irons apparently aren’t spared, either.
Don't ya just hate when that happens?
All Things DJ - I think you'll agree that DJ as genius isn't exactly type-casting. But, submitted for your approval, are two stories that challenge the Too-stupid-to-feel-pressure narrative. First, this lay-up on No. 13 from the Masters:
After teeing off with his 3-wood on the sharp, sloping dogleg left hole, Johnson casually flusheda chopped-off 6-iron from a sidehill lie in the middle of the fairway that was purposely conservative, never rising above waist high. “Just a little running 6-iron for the layup, just to keep it on the ground,” was how Dustin described the shot in his winner’s press conference.The choice of shot served two purposes. First, it kept him out of trouble and potentially a grave mistake. “We had a perfect yardage, maybe 240, a perfect 4-iron, but there was mud on the left side of the ball,” Austin said. “That means it’s going to go right, so if we go for the green, we put the water [Rae’s Creek] in play.”Second, the play at the tail end of Amen Corner made his third shot easier. “There, I cleaned it for you,” Dustin said to his brother as he handed him the club while walking up the fairway.He wanted it on the ground quickly so the wet turf would clean the ball. Which meant Johnson would have better control of his next stroke, a lob wedge he smoothed to 15 feet, followed by a low, half fist pump when his putt found the heart of the cup for a birdie.“It was genius,” Austin said. “It was one of the coolest things he’s ever done.”
I don't know about genius, but I'll stipulate to the "sneaky smart" in the header. Fact is that Dustin is smarter than we give him credit for, simply because he'd pretty much have to be.
But how smart does one have to be to be smarter than a certain Ulsterman?
For contrast, let’s hear from Dustin Johnson. Like McIlroy, Johnson has been one of the game’s longest drivers for the last decade. Like McIlroy, Johnson admitted he was intrigued by whatBryson DeChambeau had done at Winged Foot, where he won the U.S. Open by six. Like McIlroy, Johnson started tinkering with speed immediately thereafter. But unlike McIlroy, Johnson abandoned the project almost immediately after he started.
“I messed around a little bit back in October, and yeah, I mean, if I want to, I could hit it further. I have a driver that I could definitely hit a lot further than the one I’m playing. But to me, the little bit of extra distance that came with it, obviously the harder you swing, the bigger your misses are. For me, it just didn’t help.”
I know, a low bar indeed....
But this is just madness:
“Rory [McIlroy] made a comment that Dustin might be the smartest guy out there,” Winkle said. “And Bryson DeChambeau said he thinks [Dustin] is the smartest guy on tour—and we know how Bryson approaches the game, the thought he puts into it. It’s funny how the dialogue has shifted on Dustin and people are taking noted of it, how smart he is. He’s a complete player.”
Well, one does need to always consider the source...
Lastly, I actually remember that original photo:
24 years after Wayne Gretzky and Janet Jones appeared in Cigar Aficionado, here’s Dustin Johnson and Paulina Gretzky recreating their cover photo pic.twitter.com/BYztuDeDrN
— Dylan Dethier (@dylan_dethier) March 14, 2021
Yeah, but sequels never live up to the original...
What Women Want - Beth Ann Nichols was out and about on Twitter earlier this week touting a long-form piece, which has now appeared:
Let them score: How misguided course setups are holding back women’s golf
This could be interesting... though perhaps fraught with peril, as well.
As the Bryson DeChambeau bomb show enraptured the golf world at Bay Hill, 80 miles north in Ocala, Florida, LPGA players were laying up with irons on par 5s and desperately trying to hold firm greens with short to mid-irons at the Drive On Championship.
DeChambeau resides in his own orbit, of course, but “Drive On and Lay Up” could be the LPGA motto.
Even Brittany Lincicome, a player nicknamed “Bam Bam,” can typically only reach one or two par 5s each week on tour, and that’s with a 3-wood from 240 yards or a 7-wood from 220.Long to mid-irons into par 5s?
Not for the women. At any level.
Yes, and I'm glad she mentioned that dogpatch in Ocala with its replica Augusta 13th. If you venture into my archives, you'll find that I was skeptical of the Augusta National Women's Amateur, mainly from watching the ladies play those replica holes, where nobody could reach the 13th. If we accept Beth Ann's premise, we have to acknowledge that the misogynistic Lords of Augusta seem to understand women's golf better than Mike Whan and the LPGA, because they let the girls go for the green in two.
Among those filing Friend of the Court briefs was this guy:
Golf Channel analyst and PGA Tour winner Brandel Chamblee has long thought that LPGA setups are far too long, noting that given the roughly 40-yard difference off the tee, plus roughly the same difference on approach shots given the trajectory and spin rate needed to match proximity to hole, that an average 7,300-yard course on the PGA Tour would play the equivalent of roughly 6,000 yards on the LPGA.
The average course length on the LPGA in 2019 was about 6,400 yards. Major championship layouts often push 6,600 to 6,800 yards.
Of course you'll howl at this one:
“When people tune in and say, ‘Wow, they’re hitting 3-woods into par 4s and can’t reach the par 5s, it just leads to a stereotype that is wholly inaccurate,” said Chamblee, “and it makes my blood boil.”
Isn't the problem just the opposite, that the stereotype of women as shorter-hitters is accurate...That's what I meant about the peril, as any direct comparisons with the men are...well, troubling:
The USGA used volunteers and paid caddies a stipend during the 2014 U.S. Open to collect over 50,000 data points to determine how players approached each hole on No. 2. On average, there was a 25-yard difference between the men and women in terms of approach shots.
They set out to create similar hole locations and green speeds for both championships. But green firmness was the biggest change from week to week, given that women, as Kirk noted, do not hit the golf ball as high or create as much spin.
I think Beth Ann is onto something, and the aggregate scoring data seems to confirm it. But it is elite golf, so not only are these side-by-side comparisons problematical, they need to maintain the perception that the ladies are being tested appropriately, which is the second peril. Beth Ann spends some time with the amateur and recreationally games, where shorter tee options would be well-received.
Of course, perhaps this is all premature, since our new POTUS seems determined to allow biological men to play women's sports, which one assumes includes golf. Doesn't that cover Beth Ann's well-argued concerns? It's all gonna be great...
I'll probably see you on Friday. Already have a few things lined up for then...
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